20 year threat of mining near Yellowstone National Park is over.

The New World Mine was proposed to be built just north of Yellowstone National Park in 1990 by a Canadian mining company but it received a lot of opposition because it greatly threatened the headwaters of the Clark Fork of the Yellowstone and Soda Butte Creek which flows into Yellowstone National Park from the northeast.

President Bill Clinton fought the mine and a settlement was reached in 1996 but the mining claims were still held by private interests. The Trust for Public Land has purchased the last of these claims and now the threat of the mines is finally gone.

The 1872 Mining Act needs to be changed so that mining companies cannot extort the American taxpayers or others by threatening to mine such sensitive areas.

Wyoming herd is a big tourist attraction

The Whiskey Mountain Bighorn Sheep Locatable Mineral Withdrawal may be extended to protect bighorn sheep habitat from development for another 20 years. The herd there is estimated to be about 1,000 bighorn.

This pact will not stop the biggest threat in the area, the open pit mining of “tar sands,” conversion of which into synthetic oil is tremendously polluting and has relatively poor net energy efficiency.

Controversy began 1n 1974-

Well what a cause for celebration this is! I can remember I was just starting to explore the wild country as a young man back in 1974 when Sage Creek Coal proposed a big coal mine on Cabin Creek, a tributary to the North Fork of the Flathead. In 2008 I was standing in this incredible place and pondering how awful the giant coal pit and adjacent coalbed methane wells would be. I never suspected the B.C. government would side with conservation on this.